My partner/girlfriend is reaching the end of her rope! I have always strived to pay attention to the WAF when setting anything up in home automation, but inevitable glitches happen. She has tolerated most. But over time, her frustration has increased. Her concern has risen to the level of being worried about what she would do if, God forbid, I should drop from this earth.
As you all can likely attest, over time, our automation systems have Become an ever increasing network of local, and web-based, systems and devices, each with its own support companies. Mine is quite complex. She is freaking out a bit about who she would call to fix the inevitable bugs that I seem to spend so much time supporting and correcting since she has no knowledge of these systems and, of course, the integrations and devices are not professionally documented. She won't even know how to “unplug” something to turn it all off and go back to manual. Things would not work right.
So she is demanding that I find some company or freelancer who could support, manage or properly shut down and undo the system for her after my demise. She clearly enjoys many of the benefits of the system but is freaking out a bit that with the frequency and inevitability of glitches she will be lost and frustrated, and have nowhere to turn.
The skillset would have to include knowledge of Habitat, IFTTT, Alexa/Echo, Hue and likely a whole host of web based controlled devices.
Given the limited number of enthusiasts in our hobby, there are likely not many of such companies or people, but I can't be the first think of such a need. Does anyone have any suggestions?
Just tell her the same thing I told my wife... Call an electrician, and replace all of the wall switches and outlets with traditional ones and move on with your bereavement.
Will cost a bit 'o cash, but she can take it out of my insurance policy.
I am open to doing remote support for people but you are asking for more than that. Seems like it would be better suited for someone local, which may be hard to find.
Maybe a better approach would be to debug the current system, and create a manual of sorts with specific details in it, including a graceful shut down and removal.
If you need help with the debugging part send me a PM.
For the most part, my system is pretty stable. Her biggest frustration is Alexa. She has a rather thick South Georgia accent and Alexa screws it up fairly often. I have considered the documentation but that would be quite an undertaking. I am currently thinking through a rule that will provide for the most graceful backout and shutdown of all things possible and documenting that for her.
If it is any consolation my family in Louisiana can't effectively use Siri or Alexa because of their accents. Works maybe 75% of the time, but that is still a pretty bad failure rate.
I tried to design my home automation to be relatively straightforward to terminate. Pulling the plug on the Hubitat should be all that's needed to go manual.
Curtains are motorised with the manual switches connected to Z Wave Shade Modules (Qubino). Without Z Wave the switches will still operate the curtain motors. A slight twist on the motor removes it from the drive and the curtains can be drawn by hand.
Internal/External lights have retractable switches connected to Z Wave Dimmers. Without Z Wave the switches will still allow the lights to be turned on/off/adjusted
There's nothing unusual about the wiring for the lights and any electrician could remove the Z Wave modules behind the switches and return them to true manual operation.
This is me, except all of my lights are on switches that can be simply turned on and off manually. There are some lamps on smart plugs but she can just remove the smart plug and go back to manual operation. All the locks should maintain their codes, but we have keys to open them all.
So just unplug the hubs and go back to manual, or figure out how to work the system.
There have been some cases where I've been able to go into Alexa's voice history to see how she interpreted my wife's Southern commands and created a routine using that interpretation.
So I have thought about this numerous times. Might be a neat idea since this community is so strong to create our own community agreement that if one of the members of the community were to meet an untimely end, someone would volunteer to get the bereaved in a stable state. I'm not thinking ongoing support, but someone who could take a look at the setup and dumb it down for them.
This is not even a half-baked idea, I haven't thought through any of the details, more of a, "man, it'd be cool if this was one less thing to worry about."
I agree. Perhaps we need a specific thread or Wiki or group for people to volunteer or discuss ways to do this. I have thought through this a bit and have thought of some concerns but it would not be impossible.
One thing is that the person wanting support would have to have a VPN to get connected to the local network of the hubs to be supported. That brings up its own security and trust issues. but not insurmountable. I bet that most of us with very complex HE configurations already have this VPN and the the only thing that would need to be documented was UID and Password to share with the volunteers. The VPN configuration security would have to be the responsibility of the recently departed to protect the home network.
I'm pretty sure all of my automation switches and dimmers can function like standard devices if Hubitat is gone or dead. So, should be no big deal if hubitat or i expire. Just have to manually turn on where they were automatic before.
That is what I have been aiming for as well. Thanks to Lutron, wall switches, etc.
The biggest 'bother' for her right how if I croaked tomorrow and if she had to unplug HE would be not having a night alarm mode, and some lights like our closet lights, entry and a few lamps turning on with motion & time routines.
in the room.
